


Sparktale

by khilari, Persephone_Kore



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Reader-Interactive, Undertale AU, but it's not really up to us, there might be major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6195112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone_Kore/pseuds/Persephone_Kore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interactive GG/Undertale fusion crossover. You play the hero.</p><p>Don't you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cage

**Author's Note:**

> How to Play:
> 
> 1\. Each chapter will end with a set of options. For instance, in a battle, “FIGHT, SPARE or FLEE?”. In other situations it might be, ”CONTINUE, BACKTRACK or RESET?”.
> 
> 2\. To play, type the action you vote for in uppercase and, if you want to, add how you think it should be done in lowercase. For instance “SPARE by flirting” or “RESET to chapter two save”. Votes for an action will be counted and then the suggestions for how to perform the winning action will be taken into consideration.
> 
> 3\. Save points will be anything that **fills you with determination** in the text.
> 
> 4\. Discussion among players of what to vote for is welcome, it only makes it easier for us if you’re all on the same page. Just make your voting post a new one rather than part of a thread.
> 
> 5\. Non-voting comments are also welcome, but no questions will be answered because everything is spoilers.
> 
> 6\. Updates will be Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with voting to end on the previous day.

Long ago, humans and monsters lived together on the surface of the Earth. 

And then they went to war. 

Monsters had magic, in the first place, and could steal souls to become still more terrifying. 

Humans had enough determination to hold their own, for a while. 

The monsters had nearly conquered humanity when the Monster King fell in love with a clever human girl. 

She tricked him. The ambush turned the tide. And the monsters were driven underground. 

At least, that's the tale as the humans tell it.

* * *

There is a mountain where people go and don't come back. 

Some say it is where the monsters went. 

A girl went there, one day. Searching.

* * *

You wake up.

Your head hurts, too much to think, like it’s been stuffed to bursting with cotton wool. You ache all over. Your stomach lurches and you think you remember falling.

You were looking for --

Looking for -- 

Who? What?

You can't remember, and you _hurt_. Your hair is in your eyes when you open them, and then you see stripes. 

Metal stripes?

Posts?

...Bars?

You sit up (your head screams and you have to stop for a moment and not think about anything else) and look again. 

You're in a cage. 

(At some point you will begin to think in paragraphs.)

The sight of a flying fish dressed as a pirate flying down the corridor may be a good start. It's a bit much to take in in one sentence. You're thinking that flying fish can't really fly when you realise that it's much stranger for one to be wearing clothes and an eyepatch. Your head throbs and you rub your eyes hard, wondering how concussed you are. It's gone when you open them, but you can hear the sound of finbeats down the corridor.

Your head hurts, you think you fell somewhere, you seem to have misplaced your memories as well as whatever you were looking for in the first place, and either you are hallucinating or you're being kept in a cage by actual flying fish. 

That was a run-on sentence, not a paragraph. Your teachers wouldn't approve. You on the other hand really, really don't approve of the cage. Somebody's put you in a _cage_. The pulsebeat throbbing in your head takes on the heat of fury.

You stand up (ow) and try rattling it. The door jars a little with a clang that goes right to your skull and gums, but it's pretty solid. You try yelling. "Hey! Hey, let me out of here!" 

The flying fish flaps back around a corner and hovers in front of the door. It is not flapping nearly fast enough to hover like that. Then again it's also breathing air, unless you're breathing water. No, probably not. It looks worried. "I don't think I'm supposed to do that." 

You glare. "Who says you're supposed to put me in a cage?"

"Well, nobody said _I_ was, exactly," says the fish, flapping in an agitated manner. "But the Captain put you in the cage, and I doubt she wants me to let you out."

"Is she the head of some kidnapping ring?" You try to twist the bars in case that works. You're pretty sure it works in books. It doesn't work here.

"Of course not," the fish says indignantly. "She works for Baron Goatenbach."

"Is _he_ the head of some kidnapping ring?"

The fish flaps harder. Is it getting harder to breathe? The air is starting to feel... liquidy. "Baron Goatenbach is the king of the monsters!"

"That's no reason for him to put me in a cage!" you say indignantly. It's not as if you have anything against monsters... you think... you don't remember your life containing any.

"Humans are supposed to be delivered to him," the fish explains. "Any of them that come down here." It's getting closer to you and you're definitely having more trouble breathing. On the other hand, it's almost within reach, and there are keys on its belt.

It comes a beat closer and you think you could lunge. Grab it, pull it hard enough against the bars to stun it, make it stop, take the keys. Get _out._ You probably shouldn't want so much to hurt it, but you're _angry_ , you don't like being caged, being treated like an animal or a special delivery. You take a breath, let thick air hiss out between your teeth, and then curse yourself for whatever that might have telegraphed. On the other hand, you think with what calm you can reach, it seems like a decent enough fish (aside from caging you, aside from that). You could talk. Maybe it would let you go. You wonder.

FIGHT or SPARE?


	2. The Ruins

* * *

You take a long slow breath, fighting the sense that it might be water because it _isn't_ , and clamp down on your temper. Even if the people here started off by putting you in a cage, you're pretty sure you shouldn't start a fight against a fretful captor whose heart doesn't really seem to be in this job. Especially when you probably can't win, between the cage and your head and not being able to breathe properly. Looking at the big worried eyes, you don't think the fish is actually choking you on purpose. Maybe the thick air is just what allows the whole _swimming through the air_ thing. 

It isn't a huge cage, but you do have room to take a step backward. The air gets a little clearer. "Why?" you ask.

The fish looks startled. "What?"

"Why is that policy? I'm just a kid. What do you think I'm going to _do_?" You try to sound scared and it's a lot easier than you'd like. "What's going to happen to me?"

"W-well, we can't have humans wandering about, even without weapons they can be quite dangerous..." It trails off and peers at you. "You are quite small, aren't you?"

"I guess?" You aren't sure what it was expecting, but if you can convince it you don't need to be in a cage.... You sit down on the floor with your knees drawn up. "I didn't come here to hurt anybody." But you will if you have to. Assuming you can.

"Why did you come?"

"Um." You wish you could remember. "I don't know. I think I hit my head."

It swims off, a sharp flick and gone down the corridor, and for a moment you wonder why, before it returns with a fish aid kit. "Now, stay at the back of the cage and let me, um, look at you," it says in an attempt at firmness. "Promise?"

You blink and take a couple of deep breaths in case it makes the air thick where you are again. "Okay."

It unlocks the door with a key balanced, somehow, on a delicate fin and then floats over to you and runs a fin over your head. It's very soft. "I, um, don't think scale repair salve is going to help, but waterproof bandages can't hurt." The bandages are wrapped swiftly around your head with a feeling like soft fins and thick, damp air fluttering against you. It hesitates afterwards, glancing towards the open cage door and back to you where you huddle against the wall. "I... really should lock you back in. The Captain will be angry."

Your head hurts less, surprisingly so, and now you feel bad about the possibility of getting the fish in trouble. "Could you let me talk to her?"

It hesitates. "I could take you to her, now you're awake, but... um... are you sure you wouldn't rather stay in here? The Captain is," it drops its voice to a confiding whisper, "very scary."

Great. But in that case you even more definitely would rather meet her when you're _not in a cage_. "I think I'd rather see her now." You stand up, back against the bars to keep from looking like you're about to make a run for it. (You'd like to make a run for it, but all you can picture is being chased through endless lookalike corridors. By fish.) "Can you tell me more about her?"

"She used to be a pirate," says the fish. "I mean, we all did. Then Baron Goatenbach hired her. I prefer working for him, I think she does too, although she thinks he should let her drown people more. Or blow them up." It nibbles a fin. "I... I think she probably won't blow you up? She is meant to deliver you to him."

"That's... encouraging," you say. "I think." The fish flaps out of the cage and holds the door for you. "Baron Goatenbach's a good boss, then?" _What does he do with humans?_

The fish nods with a sort of bobbing motion. "It's definitely better to be on his side than have him want to fillet you for breaking his laws. N-no, I mean, he really is. He pays well and he granted amnesty. I've been able to send my fry to school."

"I'm glad. You are really not how I imagined a pirate," you add, with a great deal of sincerity. "Um... what does he do with humans?"

"Um, he just makes sure they can't hurt anyone again," says the fish. "But you don't seem like you want to hurt anyone. Maybe he'd accept that? He gave _us_ amnesty." It looks at you with nervously hopeful eyes. "The Captain knows more."

The back of your neck prickles, but you agree, "Maybe. We can hope, right?" The possibility that it might work **fills you with determination**.

The next corridor you reach -- and this place really has a truly unnecessary number of corridors -- your foot hits something. It's a puzzle cube, made of solid wood, and it doesn't strike you as much of a weapon but at least it's pretty heavy and has sharp edges. You surreptitiously scoop it up and slide it into your pocket. Then you turn a corner and there's a figure standing at the end of it leaning against a doorframe and flipping a knife in her hand. Which, unlike the various fish flying around, she has. Despite this, you can see as you get closer, she's also kind of a fish. Pure white humanoid body, red throat, and a long braid of black hair. There's black markings around her eyes too, and the base of her claws, and like a pair of brackets around the centre of her forehead. Her ear frills are lined in red and so are her gills. She's wearing white pants and a white jacket over a red sweater, so close to her own colours it almost blends, and she turns to you with a grin like a knife drawer.

Yikes. You stop yourself from stepping back, but she probably saw you jolt and she grins harder. 

"The human asked to see you," the first fish says nervously. "Um -- is that okay?"

"Bit late if it isn't, don't you think?" She waves the knife dismissively. "Yeah, go on, small fry. I can handle her."

Your fish friend (that may be overstating things) turns tail, and you don't really blame it. "Captain," you say, flounder for a second, and then go on, "was the cage really necessary?"

"Orders from on high," she says. "I'd have just gutted you."

"From Baron Goatenbach?" you ask. You wonder who this person is who you've so far only heard referred to as Captain, and whether she really wants to kill you more than her boss does.

**Captain Banglafish DuPree.** The thought hovers in front of your eyes like it's written on the retinas. **Usually wants to kill everyone. Usually loyal enough not to.**

You blink hard, and rub your eyes. "Captain DuPree?" you ask.

"That's me!" she says. "Of course, who else could it be?"

"So what does he do to humans once you deliver them?" There's something about her that makes you wish you had a weapon, even if you're still not sure whether you'd use it.

The grin turns abruptly into a scowl. "He won't tell me. Keeps them out of trouble, he says." A briefly thoughtful expression. "Guess that part's true. Nobody's brought the ceiling down lately." 

"....Nobody's _what_?"

She makes a vague but violent gesture upwards with her knife. "Guess you didn't go down the corridors there's still rubble in. I'll show you on the way back to the Capital. The view's way better from outside."

"What kind of humans do you normally _get_ down here?" you demand. "I wouldn't know how to bring down a ceiling if I tried!"

She shrugs. "I guess she was a bit... heh, nope, she wasn't bigger than you. Older though." She grins, earfins flaring. "Best to deal with you humans before you get to that stage. Pity, it would be one hell of a fight."

"I'll take that as a compliment," you decide. "Sort of. But I didn't come here to fight anybody."

"I'm here to fight _you_ ," she says. "Except you were already out when we got here, so I just shoved you in a cage. You wanna get back in it?"

Your back tenses, between the shoulder blades, and then you roll your shoulders and it goes away and everything goes sharp and clear. "Not even a little bit."

"Good." She flips her knife lazily towards you and it buries itself in the wall, but a moment later there's another in her hand. "I was looking forward to this."

She's more than ready to fight you, but are you ready to fight her?

FIGHT, SPARE or FLEE?


	3. The Fire Works

* * *

No, you decide, you are _not_ ready to fight her. You dodge as an intricate pattern of knives buries itself around you, flinging yourself down and then jumping. As soon as she pauses to gather her magic for the next attack, you run.

"Hey! Get back here!"

She charges after you and it's not long before you're sliding along on your knees to avoid another string of knives.

It's not long either before you're wondering if you'd actually be in any more trouble up close and personal where you could at least try to hit her back. Or maybe it'd just be over already. You roll, jump up, keep running and nearly fall flinging yourself around a corner. A blade nicks the skin of your arm and the flash of pain takes you by surprise. It's not that bad a cut. You won't _let_ it be that bad a cut. You can barely believe you haven't been hit worse. (You're not going to be hit worse.) 

Another corner. More corridor. You really thought the idea of a maze was your exaggerated imagination. There has to be a way out of here! 

There's suddenly a feeling of familiarity, like you know this place. Like each corridor comes labelled with the place it leads to. **Pantry, secret pantry, lab, EXIT.** You don't know why, but you trust it.

You tear through the next doorway on your right, around another two corners, and then throw your whole weight on a lever that falls smoothly and throws you off balance but _opens a door to the outside_.

You run. Mostly straight and as hard as you can until your peripheral vision brings you the glint of a flying knife and then you dive sideways and start zigzagging sharply to throw her off. You’re faster, when you know where you’re going, and you finally hear her yelling in the distance about getting faster reinforcements and a net.

You pause at last, lungs heaving with exertion, and look back cautiously. From here you can see the place you've left more clearly. The soft grey stone of the sheer walls, the decorative pillars and stone ivy twining around windows. The cracks running through the whole thing. The dark grey boulders sticking out from it like thrown stones. Above you, when you look up, the ceiling is the same grey and for a moment you feel claustrophobic -- imagining blocks of it falling, seeing the outlines of cracks there, as well, where something had split it.

No wonder that first poor fish was nervous. You'd be on edge if you had to work under that _or_ with Captain DuPree. Maybe now you're gone they can leave?

Yeah, to come after you. Better keep moving. 

You head for the hills. Literally. You've got some distance; now you want them to lose track of you, so you go slower and hike into less exposed terrain where you won't completely stick out, winding through valleys. You feel better the first time you glance back and can't see the wall.

You feel less better when you round a bend and find flame shooting out of a pipe in the ground, like a giant Bunsen burner.

After you edge around the first one, you spot another jammed into the ground not far off, and more plumes of fire higher up the slopes. You start stepping more lightly, feeling as if the ground might suddenly explode, and part of you wants to run back and take your chances with Banglafish DuPree and the cracked ceiling. You tell yourself the ground probably isn't any more dangerous than the ceiling.

Even if it's on fire. 

It's hot here, and you're out of breath again. It's a relief when the hills peter out and you can strike out across level ground, but the landscape doesn't get less worrying. First of all the burning pipes are still there. Second, the grass seems to be migrating. You think it's blowing in the wind and then rub your eyes when you start thinking otherwise, but no, it's really going different directions, patches scurrying this way and that, dragging their roots through the soil. You stop to stare at it and nearly fall over when the blades under your feet force themselves back upright and take off sideways. 

You spot a glint of metal eventually that is _not_ topped with fire and head for that, stopping well short of the vines growing a few feet up the pipe. Above them it curves off into the distance. Farther still and you're walking between machines, pistons pumping and metal clanking away. 

"What _is_ this place?" you ask the air. 

"Welcome to the Fire Works," says a voice. You turn and there's a skeleton sitting on a horizontal section of pipe.

Somehow he's less spooky than you'd expect a skeleton to be. Maybe it's the layers of clothes, topped with a waistcoat, that somehow make someone composed entirely of bones appear stout. Maybe it's the glasses held on with sellotape for lack of either ears or nose. Maybe it's the big grin which a skeleton can hardly help having, but which this one somehow seems to mean. "Hi," you say back, smiling yourself. "What do the Fire Works do?"

"Not explode, mostly, believe it or not," he says cheerfully. "Although I could use a hand with that, if you don't mind." He holds out one of his. "I'm Barry Skeleterodyne. My brother Bill and I handle the maintenance."

You don't exactly have anywhere to be. Or, at least, you don't know where you're going. You shake his hand and it feels sort of like a handful of dice. "I don't mind helping," you answer.

"Great," he says, towing you off at an angle from the direction you were walking before. It's not back toward the ruined fortress and the broken ceiling, so that's fine. Although it looks like the pipes are thicker up ahead, and the grass seems to be in more of a hurry. You almost lose your balance, and Barry casually lets go of your hand only after you get the hang of moving with it. A thornbush leans over you, branches stretching out, and he taps them back lightly with a long bone. Wait. What? "Back off, she's a guest."

He stops at a flat square of tangled piping over what looks like a long drop occasionally flickering with fire. "Okay," he says. "This is attached to a bunch of gas vents and that" -- he points to something that looks incredibly like a large bunsen burner -- "is our burn off. But some days some vents produce more and other times they produce less. So today we need the red and blue vents linked to to the burn off. I'll do red, you do blue."

"But, how?" you ask.

He waves an arm. "The dials on the pipes will let you turn them. Hey, don't worry, if you slip I'll throw you a bone. Promise."

After the predatory thornbush this seems likely to be literal, although you're not quite sure how it would _help_. The mass of pipes looks unnecessarily complicated and definitely unnecessarily dangerous. But as a challenge, it's probably a better one than knife-fighting a pirate captain. You bite your lip and trace the pipes nearest the blue vent with your eyes, slowly recognising this as a familiar type of puzzle game _on a screen, not in midair_. Then you cautiously step across to the nearest one. The heat strikes up at you from below, and the air shimmers. You stop to check your balance; you're pretty surefooted, but you're no tightrope walker, even if you always kind of wanted to try it. (Oh good, more memory.)

Turning the dial makes the pipe swing around to click into place with you _on_ it, and you drop to a crouch and wrap your hands around it, heart beating fast. After the second one, when you're expecting it, you're grinning. It's alarming, but you can do it and see a path to the end and it's kind of _fun_. 

Barry is going faster, hopping across pipes as they turn like he does this every day, which you guess isn't a surprise. When he hops off on the other side, he's taken up some of the pipes you might have used and you stop to reorient. "Why do you just burn it off like this?" you ask. "It seems like kind of a waste. Couldn't you use the fuel for something?"

He grins at you. Grins more? "We're working on that, actually." Somehow you can see the amusement fall away, as he turns back to the pipes. "The old city wasn't compromised all _that_ long ago. When we had to move out, we couldn't get a lot of people very far at first because this area was too dangerous. Nobody could breathe, and there was a lot of new instability . Bill and I don't _have_ to, and we're good at fire magic --" He rubs the back of his skull. "--So we basically set up a lot of controlled burns to convert the alkanes to carbon dioxide and plants to convert that to oxygen, so we could get everybody through and building new homes. Since then we've been working on ways to make better use of the energy." 

You step onto solid ground, a little too close to the burnoff for comfort, and the grass darts up under your feet just as you shy away from it. He grabs you lightning-quick when you wobble. "So," he says. "What brings you underground?"

"I don't know," you admit. "I was looking for something, I think, but I hit my head and that's all I remember."

"... _You_ hit your head or somebody else did?"

You snort. "I just said I don't remember, but Captain DuPree seemed disappointed about not getting to fight me." A pause. "Which, honestly, was really weird."

"Captain DuPree wants to fight everyone." For a moment his eyes are darker, lights dimming in the sockets, then he shakes it off. "And humans have a reputation down here. More than a reputation, really. Monsters are magical creatures, we react to feelings as much as physics, so if you really _want_ to hurt us there's a good chance you can." He sighs. "Part of why Captain DuPree is so effective down here is that she usually does want to hurt everyone. It's unusual in a monster."

Your stomach flips with a kind of hypothetical guilt as you remember just how angry you were at that first fish. The idea that you could really have given the pirate captain a fight, on the other hand, is kind of exciting. "I don't think that's the impression anybody was left with up above," you say. "I mean, I believe you, but still." You do. He seems trustworthy the same way Banglafish DuPree seemed dangerous. Maybe it's something about the smile. 

"Well," he says wryly, "it's not like we can't if we try. Or if we don't, which was probably part of the problem."

"Huh?"

"I know better," Barry explains, "but suppose somebody who relies on fire magic to exist assumed they couldn't burn a human as long as they didn't _mean_ to?" 

" _Oh._ " You swallow. Then ask, "But wanting to hurt people wouldn't give her the same kind of edge against a human?"

He looks you in the eyes, thoughtful. "Well," he says, "it doesn't exactly get in the way."

You nod and he takes your hand again. "Come on. The next one's easier."

It is, mostly because it's vertical and therefore the dials are at the bottom and not on the pipes.

"It'll go quicker if we split up for this one. I'll go down and do one side and you do the other. I won't be too far away, so you can yell if anything happens. Think you'll be okay?"

"I should," you say. "I'll try not to get eaten by a plant or anything."

He gives you a thumbs up and you part. The puzzle is much safer, but actually less fun for not requiring you to balance on it, still you're deep in thought over trying to get a particularly awkward set of right angles to work when you hear a _thwomp_ behind you.

You turn and it's... well... you think it might be a sort of humanoid rabbit? Except it has teeth sharper than Banglafish DuPree's and claws like sickles. Ragged ears stick out of a very impressive hat.

**A Jäger. These monsters are filled with determination.**

You're blinking away afterimages from the text when it speaks. "Vell, vot haff ve here?"

"A visitor," you reply. "I'm, uh, helping with the pipes."

"Ve dun get many humans beink helpful around here." He scratches at an ear and there's a feeling in the air, like the world narrowing down on you, and it's starting to become familiar as being the focus of a monster's magic.

"Do you get many humans down here at all?" The edges of the puzzle box suddenly feel hard in your pocket.

"Nope!" It's said cheerfully, with teeth bared in a predatory grin, and then the Jäger bounds forwards.

FIGHT, SPARE or FLEE?


	4. The Fire Works

* * *

"Hey!" You dodge, and the Jäger crashes straight into the pipes you were standing in front of. Ow? "You okay there, hot stuff? Can't we talk this over, or chat about your hat? That's a nice hat." The Jäger picks himself up and you take a deep breath. "BARRY!"

"Hey!" Barry's suddenly sitting on top of the pipe array and you're not sure how he got up there so fast. "No attacking people passing through!"

"Bot iz a human!" the Jäger yells up.

"Still no. She's helping me with the pipes."

"H'okay. Dis vun has good taste anyvay! She likes mine hat." The Jäger turns his grin back on you, striking a pose with his ears perked. "Hyu reach der town later, I meet you for a date, hey?"

"Sounds like fun," you say. That was a fast turnaround. The Jäger hops off and you look up at Barry. "Thanks for, uh, vouching for me."

He rolls his eyelights. "Sorry about that. I sometimes think they picked up the enthusiasm from my brother."

You blink and look the direction the Jäger went. "...Is he likely to try to tackle me?"

"...No," Barry admitted. "But you might wind up in a confrontation with him if you continue towards the town."

“Can I just not continue towards the town?”

He looks surprised, like maybe he actually thought you knew where you were going. “If you want to get out of here, then no. You have to keep heading east.”

You rub your head. "I really wish I could remember what I was looking for here, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't trouble." Although you're starting to think you should have expected it. "Any advice? Hopefully that isn't to turn myself in?"

He swings down the pipes to stand next to you and puts a hand on your shoulder. "Try and talk things out? Sorry, there's not much I can do about Bill once he's being protective. He's a good person, though, he'll calm down. And if it helps, he doesn't want to turn you in to Klaus... to Baron Goatenbach. Neither of us would do that."

Klaus? "You're on first-name terms, but you wouldn't turn me in?"

"...He used to be a friend. These days we... don't talk as much. Mostly Bill and I stick to handling the Fire Works, he's not employing us for anything else." He reaches out to haul himself back up the pipes. "Talking of which, we'd better get on with this."

You frown and go back to turning dials. 

Barry is nowhere to be found when you finish this one, which is disappointing, especially as you were hoping to ask whether he couldn't just _introduce_ you to his brother. Maybe Bill has a thing about not taking other people's word for what somebody's like. You can respect that. This certainly isn't what anybody above ground would have led you to expect of monsters, for example. Then again, you think, if you had a brother who'd already _met_ the person.... 

You sigh and start walking east. There are actually paths now, weaving between the pipes, and you find your way onto a broad, well-worn one where the walking is easy. 

Up to a point. 

You could almost forget, when your focus was taken up by running or mountain climbing or pipe puzzles, that you are actually _underground_. And then you realize you can’t see a horizon, or even a dark distance; what’s taking up all the space ahead of you is... a wall. A natural rock wall. That goes all the way up. 

The town you're heading for is actually built into a notch, or a hole, an oddly round one like somebody took a giant hole punch to the rock. Maybe when Barry talked about getting people 'through' it wasn't just about getting past unstable fuel deposits. The buildings spread across the base and climb up around the sides and even seem to have been built into the ceiling. The thought that someone managed to build in such an unlikely place **fills you with determination**.

A long causeway with switchbacks leads up and up and up the curve of the cave wall, and at the base of it stands a skeleton.

He's taller than Barry, wearing an open shirt that shows part of his ribcage and the most redundant pair of goggles you've ever seen. "Halt," he says, holding one hand up, and you do, feeling strangely exasperated rather than really intimidated. Maybe it's because Barry wasn't very scary.

"There's no point to continuing. There's no way out without killing." He lowers his hand and surprises you by looking sympathetic. "From here there are only more monsters. You'll hurt them, or they'll hurt you. You're too dangerous to be allowed through a town. If you stay here, outside, we'll do our best to take care of you." His eyes flare behind his goggles, light refracting blue. "I'm sorry."

You rub your forehead, hard, and your hand comes up against the waterproof bandages. "Really. What makes you so special?"

He looks thrown. "What?"

"What makes you special? You and Barry and the Jägers? Why can you take care of me," you want to say you don't need taking care of, but you're fourteen and you're pretty sure you've got a mother out there, of course you do, what is _wrong_ with your _head_ still? "but I can't be allowed around other monsters because we'll automatically hurt each other?" 

"I don't really want you around the Jägers, either," he snaps. "Barry and I are stronger and we have more control. We're special because we _have_ to be."

"That could be a problem, I think I sort of made a date with one," you muse. You are impressed that a skull can look incredulous. "Well I hate to stand a guy up...."

"That is really not the point," he says.

You suppose it isn't. The point is that he's standing there, barring your way home -- whatever home is -- and probably you're either going to have to fight or try what Barry said and talk it out, which isn't going swimmingly so far, although at least he's listening. You wonder what fighting him would be like and almost expect the text that flashes before your eyes.

**Bill Skeleterodyne. Has really cool death rays!**

Oh. Great. Still, it doesn't change your options, does it?

FIGHT, SPARE or BACKTRACK?


	5. Town Approach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We added a Save Point to the last chapter, btw, since it was meant to be there before the boss fight.

* * *

You don't want to fight him. You didn't fight Banglafish, and he's at least not eager to kill you. Besides, it would upset his brother, who you are currently annoyed with -- he could have made himself useful here! -- but still kind of grateful to for explaining things. Pulling out the puzzle cube isn't because it might be useable as a weapon, it's just curiosity and something to fiddle with. You're not much good at these, and this is a complicated one, but not unusual. Just angular wooden blocks that can be slid along one another a little way -- there's even a trademark carved into the bottom.

The look you get when you stand there apparently doing a puzzle is sheer bewilderment.

After a few minutes Bill clears his throat. "What are you doing?"

"A puzzle."

"Here?"

"You're the one who wanted me to stay here."

He shifts his weight and you bite your lip and don't look up, to keep from laughing. "I didn't mean you had to stay exactly there."

"You're not letting me go forward, and there's nothing to go back to," you point out.

"You're going to be stubborn about this, aren't you."

It's not a question. "Yep."

He studies you a while longer. You slide puzzle blocks. "What is it you want, anyway?" 

"I want to go home. Barry said I can't get anywhere without going through town."

"You can't get anywhere either way. Baron Goatenbach won't let you pass the barrier and you won't be able to make it through with only your own soul even if he did." He lifts a hand and bones erupt out of the ground around you, but not through you or even particularly close. "Just. Go back. Or stay here. Letting you through means being responsible for whatever happens as a result."

You frown at the bones. "I am getting kind of frustrated with you both, but I think you and your brother are better company than Captain DuPree, or at least you go in for bigger cages." You're not being completely fair. Saying it reminds you they're supposed to be trapped here, too. "You can't just run other people's lives because you've decided everything that happens is somehow your fault, you know!"

"If I wanted to run people's lives I could have just taken over. Baron Goatenbach wouldn't have stopped me." His eyes are flaring a little behind the goggles, light refracting in them. "But you can't just trust people with the power to harm aren't going to use it, either. I've tried that."

"I haven't so far," you say crossly. "And it's not like I wasn't mad at the -- the fish pirates. Ex-pirates. And I'm pretty sure you could hurt people if you wanted."

"I watch myself too."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Or ask why he gets to be special, again. You would like to go somewhere besides in circles eventually. "So who made you decide you can't let other people watch themselves? Baron Goatenbach? --No, not if you could take over from him and don't."

"Because I used to trust that they could." His teeth clack together as if he's biting off his words. "That anyone could change if they tried. And I was wrong."

"...Oh. You trusted the person Captain DuPree said broke the ceiling, didn't you?"

"Yes."

That... would probably make most people a little paranoid. You sigh and sit down with your puzzle box. You might be here a while. "What happened?"

He hesitates and then sits down on the path, one leg stretched and the other up with his arm draped over the knee. You could probably get past him like this... or not, you think, remembering the bones. "She was older than you when she fell, but not by that much. We were pretty young ourselves, then. Me and my brother and Baron Goatenbach -- Klaus. We were some of the most powerful monsters in the underground and even though we were really too young for the guard we wanted to... to do something. To bring people hope.

"We found her in the middle of the palace garden, beneath the same hole you probably fell through. There were arguments about what to do with her, when humans had trapped us here and were known to be dangerous, but we made friends with her. She had a lot of energy, I suppose, curiosity... no, she did things just to see what would happen. She was reckless and irresponsible. But we thought we could help direct her.

"I fell in love with her."

You were not expecting that, but you're not surprised. It feels like a natural part of the story. _The Monster King fell in love with a clever human girl...._ Even if Bill hadn't been king. No wonder he doesn't want you dating a Jäger. No wonder -- no, just listen. "Then what? She did something to the ceiling... to see what would happen?" 

Was she trying to hurt them? Or trying to get out?

"Klaus... Klaus took her soul and left through the barrier. Or so we thought. We weren't sure how he'd managed to leave her alive, it was horrifying. He'd loved her too but I'd never imagined he could do something like that out of jealousy. She was different, more reckless than ever, sometimes cruel... but she'd been attacked, had something ripped out of her... I still loved her. Or maybe pitied her." He slides his goggles up and rubs a finger over the dampness gathering at the bases of his eyesockets. "Then she attacked. I'd given her access to labs, she'd built machines, and she'd... she'd killed monsters without me realising. Built up her killing intent." He takes a deep breath, or the equivalent, ribs lifting. "Klaus returned during her attacks. He'd never taken her soul, she'd pushed it onto him and thrown him out. She could have taken his just as easily... maybe she didn't want to kill him. Maybe she didn't want to leave, just to rule our world."

The first response that comes to mind tends to get adults off topic and focused on your word choice so you don't say it. "I... guess I can see why you don't want me running around here," you say instead. (You still mean to get through... do skeletons have to sleep?) "If -- if it means anything, most humans would think that was awful too."

He smiles at you, a perpetual grin that somehow still manages to look wan. "You don't seem so bad. You've got me completely off guard here and still didn't attack or even run past."

You refuse to feel guilty about still plotting to get around him. Although if you really can't cross the barrier, you aren't sure what good it'll do. "I really don't want to hurt anybody. Or -- okay, I'm not saying I'm an angel, I ran from Captain DuPree because I didn't think I could beat a shower of knives with a puzzle box, not because I didn't want her hurt." It is possible, although you aren't sure how, that Bill just snorted. "But Barry explained about monsters being more easily hurt if you mean to and not expecting humans to be hurt by their magic if they aren't trying. I don't want to _attack_ anybody, and I'm not going to take accidents personally now that I know better."

"I think she'll be fine," says a voice behind you and Bill looks up as you turn to see Barry standing on the path.

This time Bill definitely snorts. "Have you been lurking?"

"Yep." He walks past you and offers his brother a hand up. "I didn't want to have a fight if you weren't going to listen, but now you've seen she's a nice kid."

"You have so much faith in me," Bill says dryly, getting to his feet.

"You do insist on making your own mind up."

"You mean I don't listen to you."

"I was _trying_ to be tactful."

You press your lips together to suppress a giggle and slip the puzzle cube back into your pocket as Barry reaches a hand to you this time. He pulls you to your feet easily and raises a... wait, did he just raise a brow ridge?... at Bill. Bill nods.

"Come on," Barry says, to you. "Let us show you around our town. This is Game Mechanicsburg."

You grin at him. You might still be stuck, but you're _less_ stuck. "Sounds like fun."

It's a long climb to the ceiling and you wonder if it's less tiring for people who don't have muscles. But once you're there you forget your aching legs to look in wonder at a town that is almost literally upside down. Houses and towers hang from the roof like stalactites, sloped roofs at the bottom. Walkways hang next to the roofs, winding like an eel through the strange town. Jägers bounce from one walkway to another, swing from gables, while more sensible monsters stick to walking.

"You'll probably find any Jägers you want at Gkika's," says Barry. "Assuming you want any of them."

You don't answer that, but you're glad Bill doesn't seem too worried.

"There's a shop over that way if you want supplies," Barry continues. "And a coffee shop up in that direction if you want to meet the guy who runs this place. There are several inns but they'll all overcharge you. Sorry."

Someone calls and you turn to see a Jäger who looks like a fishperson -- maybe a DuPree type of monster -- hailing them.

"I think we're needed," Barry finishes.

Bill hesitates. "Sorry about the fight," he says. "...if you want to find us, go to the coffee shop and ask for Van. I'll let him know about you."

You watch them leave, falling easily into step despite their different heights, and look around the town with curiosity. Where will you go?

GO TO GKIKA'S, GO TO COFFEE SHOP, CONTINUE TRAVELLING, BACKTRACK or RESET?


	6. The Coffee Shop

* * *

The town seems friendly, now you're here, and it's a relief after cages and fights just to relax. You duck into the shop Barry pointed out and find it run by a lizard.

"Hoy!" she says. "Did you want something?"

Food, you think. The smell of cooking has been in the air since you reached town, but you're already thinking of going to the coffee shop to grab lunch, so you just get a few gingerbread trilobites for later. Something else catches your eye.

"Is that a flute?"

"Yeah. We pick up all sorts of junk around here. Did you want it?"

You don't play the flute, but it says "yamaha" on the side. You don't think they make instruments for monsters. You buy it mostly for the sign of someone here before you, like the trademarked puzzle box.

She names a price in gold as you’re pulling a crumpled wad of dollar bills from your pockets and you almost panic. But a moment later she says “human money, even better,” and you’re being handed your purchases to your confusion and relief.

You almost run on the way to the coffee shop. If you were less tired charging down these winding walkways would be fun. A couple of young puppy monsters are sledding down one, being caught by something that looks like an exasperated octopus merged together with something more human-like at the bottom. Weird even for a monster, what with the two heads and slightly melted appearance, but at least it has plenty of hands. The puppies are cute and you wave a hand to them as you go past, getting little paw waves back.

The coffee shop itself is an elegant place, wood panelled and slightly intimidating. You're kind of used to Costa. Inside are a lot of well dressed monsters sitting around drinking coffee. Even the one that looks like a venus-fly-trap is well dressed. Even the horse.

"Excuse me," you ask the fire elemental at the counter. "Could I buy some lunch? And could you tell me where Van is?"

"Sure, honey," she says. "We've got some sandwiches over here. And that's Van over there."

The _horse?_ He's not even bipedal, the way the dogs earlier were.

**A cappie. Cappuccino elemental in the shape of a horse.**

You blink, taking in the two tone foam of his mane and the sugar texture of his hooves. There's a large cup on the table in front of him.

"Thanks," you remember to say, once you've sort of absorbed the idea of a coffee elemental, and go to get a sandwich. Most of them appear to contain variations on snails, and you find yourself reading the labels in fascination until a turtle leans past and you start to feel embarrassingly indecisive. You buy one with cheese (and a snail) and approach Van. "Hi. ...Bill Skeleterodyne said I should ask for you?"

"Ah, you must be the human," he says. "Sit down. Would you like a coffee?"

Sitting at his table is amazingly like taking a bath in the scent of coffee. You feel very awake. You suspect your snail will also taste like coffee. You are not entirely certain if drinking some would actually make a difference. "I kind of feel like I just had one," you admit, blinking. "But sure, thank you."

He waves a hoof for someone to bring one over. "Did you want Bill and Barry? I can send someone for them if you did."

"Please? I'm not sure how long they were going to be busy, but I would like to ask some more questions now that I've looked around a little."

"Oh, people are calling them around town all the time," he says cheerfully. "Whenever they come in from the pipes or their labs. _I_ keep track of everything from right here."

You grin a little at how proud he sounds, but nod seriously. He calls over a ghost with gold earrings (at least, you think they're earrings, there's a lack of ears) and asks her to run the message for you. She disappears through the ceiling.

"I might be able to answer a few questions while you wait," he says. "Depending on how technical they are, anyway -- I'm told you did very well at the pipe puzzles." 

"Well --" You look down and unwrap your sandwich. "It was convenient for me, but _why_ do the shops here take human money?"

"Human things are valuable," he explains, pausing to dip his nose into his cup and take a drink. "They wash down the river font and into the dump, but a lot of them are ruined by that time. We get most of our technology from there."

"But money's just metal," you point out. "And you use gold."

"Humans have a lot of magic, even though most of them can't use it. You could say the idea of value sticks to their money." He twitches an ear. "To be honest I'm not sure whether the shop keepers know that or just feel that human money is valuable, but you won't have trouble spending it."

"...I think I'm going to have to learn more about how magic works," you decide. "Between stuff like that, and needing to watch out for magic that can hurt me without the monster it belongs to realizing, and what Bill said about getting through the barrier...."

"You'd probably have to ask the Skeleterodynes about that. I'm not a scientist," says Van.

"...What 'technical' and 'science' mean down here, apparently," you add, laughing a little at yourself. "I'm not used to either having to do with magic."

Van blinks. "Really?"

"You said yourself, most of us can't use it."

"Yes," he says, "but honestly, it's hard to imagine what that's really _like_."

The door swings open and both of you look up as the pair of skeletons walk in. "How are things going, Van?" Bill asks.

"No problems," says Van, tossing his mane back importantly and spattering you lightly with foam. "The human wanted to see you. She's interested in magic, but as I told her, I'm not a scientist."

"Maybe we'll take you to our lab once you've eaten," Barry says, sliding into a seat and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Bill stays standing, bending slightly to fold his arms on the back of Barry's seat. "Really, Barry?"

"Like I said, I think it would be a good idea. How many humans do we get through here, let alone friendly ones?"

Bill looks at you consideringly. You swallow a bite of snail sandwich that you could have stood to chew a little more. "Um... actually... how many _do_ you? Because the mountain has a reputation for people disappearing but I don't know if it's because people fall _in_ or just... you know... off." The question feels important but you can't think of why.

Bill looks... kind of guilty. "A surprising number since Baron Goatenbach came to power. Most of them have been caught by, erm, the fish ex-pirates. Only one of them got very far and she did some serious damage although I think she was angry about the previous ones." So that's why he's guilty. He hadn't done anything to help them.

This feels like a rude question to ask a skeleton trapped in a barrier but it is also kind of important to you. "Are they prisoners or dead?"

He pauses, more like he's uncertain than offended. "Enchanted sleep. I think."

You picture Snow White in her glass coffin, Sleeping Beauty behind the thorns, and choke on your last bite of snail.

Van surprises you by patting you on the back with a hoof. "As far as our spies have been able to find out," he adds.

"They're not spies," says Bill.

"Tell Jenka that," retorts Barry.

Bill shrugs. "If you come," he says, "you can't tell Baron Goatenbach what we're working on."

This is more than a little confusing. "I won't, but it doesn't sound like he'd listen if I tried telling him anything."

"He'd listen to the information," says Barry, grimly. "He wouldn't listen to _you_."

"Okay," you say. "I won't tell." 

The brothers exchange another look and then Bill says, "Okay. Come to the top of the town, then, if you want to."

At this point you are wildly curious, although you're also wondering if you should go look up the rabbit Jäger before too much longer.

GO TO THE LAB, GO TO GKIKA'S, CONTINUE TRAVELLING, BACKTRACK or RESET?


	7. Gkika's Bar

* * *

After a long moment of hesitation, you say, "I do want to come and I appreciate you trusting me to visit... but I did tell that Jäger I'd meet him if I got into town." You don't know if he really expects you or how long he'll hang around, but you liked him. "I also have no idea what anybody's schedule is like."

"Well, we're going to be home for a while," says Bill, sounding the tiniest bit relieved. "At least, barring emergencies. He can always show you the way later."

You hear the bar before you see it. Cheerful shouts and off key singing and… it brings back almost memories. You're too young to drink, right? But you feel like you've hung out in a bar before, the cheerful atmosphere draws you.

You throw open the door eagerly and then pause. There's magic in the air, and not in the twinkly sense. Little fizzling droplets, bombs, hats(?), flames and more are appearing and disappearing in front of you. It's a fight, not a serious fight, and you're almost more jealous than intimidated. It would be really good to let off some steam. But you're fragile to them and they might be fragile to you and you feel like an alien.

"Hey!" you yell. "Is there a rabbit in here looking for a date?"

There is not quite a pause in the fighting, but there's a disruption, and a fanged rabbit pushes his way out of the melee. Two other laughing Jägers try to hold him back, and he plants a large foot solidly in one's midsection but with the arching claws curled back. He hops over a table, lands in front of you, and adjusts his hat from straight to an artfully askew angle, waggling his ears. "Hy vouldn't mind von, sveethot." 

...This is not the same rabbit. The hat is taller and less fancy, the nose is narrower, the voice lighter, and the fur is green instead of brown. "I think--"

" _Hoy!_ " A more familiar rabbit-Jäger bounds over, landing close enough to shove the other sideways, and grins toothily at you. "My date. He can vait his turn to ask."

You laugh. "Glad to catch up with you."

"Hy bet! Hyu missed me sveetie?" He takes your hand in a rough paw. "Vanna drink?"

"I'm underage," you say.

"Humans haff an age limit on drinking?"

"Uh huh. Teenagers definitely aren't supposed to."

"Oh no! Hy is underage too!" His ears droop in comical dismay.

You try not to giggle. "If nobody's stopped you yet I don't think they're going to do it now."

He perks up and you walk over to the bar -- or, more accurately, dodge your way over to the bar -- hand in paw. Around you are a lot of monsters, in a lot of shapes. Most of them resemble animals of some kind, although there are a few slimes and plants. Then you nearly bump into what you think is a group sharing a drink until you look closer and realise it's... a group of dogs, maybe, although more of a being that _is_ a group of dogs.

"Uh."

"Huh?" Your date glances over his shoulder. "Oh, dun mind the amalgamates. They heppen."

One end of the amalgamate waves and calls, "is rude to stare," at you, while another of its heads winks. You turn away blushing, but find yourself picking out which groups are... not as you continue to the bar.

The bar is tended by a chameleon two feet taller than you, wearing a dress and the most remarkable hat yet, decorated with flowers, fruit, and -- is that an axe? "Vot'll it be?"

Most of the drinks behind the bar are definitely alcoholic, but you catch sight of some lemonade. You also catch sight of some cake. Never mind that you've just had lunch, you're hungry. "A glass of lemonade and some chocolate cake, please," you say.

She cuts two slices for you, wrapping one up and handing the package to you with a grin. "Save dot vun for later. In case you get into a fight."

"...if I get into a fight I should eat cake?" you ask incredulously.

"If hyu get hurt, yez."

"Um...?"

Your date gives you a puzzled look. "Dun humans vant to get better fast?"

"Yeeees, but how does cake help with that?"

"Hyu eat und hyu body turns food into energy und energy into healing schtuff," says the chameleon, leaning on the bar. "I hear human food iz different?"

"Well, it's certainly not as _fast_." You stuff the wrapped cake into a pocket and grin almost as widely as the chameleon. "I could get used to cake as first aid."

"More fun dan bandages, huh?" she asks, and you suddenly remember the fish pirate's waterproof bandages and realize your head hasn't hurt even a little since you got lunch. Cool. You put a hand up to take them off and blink as text flickers in front of your eyes. **Waterproof bandages. Probably good 2, 3 more times.**

"Und Hy vill haff a beer," your date says. Once he's holding it he turns to you with mock seriousness. "Ve haff a problem, dollink. Mine brothers iz between here and the booths."

You turn. You're not sure if he means literal brothers or, like, all of them as brothers-in-arms, but either way, the friendly brawl is keeping things busy enough that half the time you can't even _see_ the booths. "Well, you're the expert," you say. "What do we do about it?"

"Vell," he says. "Ve could eat here. Or Hy could yell at dem, hyu iz human und dis is not an official brawl because it is lunch time, so dey might let hyu through. Or... ve could haff _fun_."

"You have official brawls?"

"Ho, yez! But after dinner."

...Well, okay then. "I might like the sound of fun," you say. You don't want to hurt anybody, it looks like they're being reasonably careful even with each other, and you do have healing cake for yourself, right?

"Hokay! No weapons, lotz of punching! Blue magic means hyu haff to stay still und it won't hurt you. Ve aim for the third booth on the left. Ready?"

"Hold still for blue magic, right," you say, and the two of you plunge forward.

You don't actually punch anyone until a grinning cat bats you with its claws in, still hard enough to smack you aside. Then you figure, well, if _they_ get to do it. Your punches are met with laughter and compliments, "fight vit ME!" becoming a refrain, so you're pretty sure you're not really hurting them. You're laughing, anxiety and restraint both melting away into something warm and playful, rough and tumble as it is, and you reach the booth with bruised ribs and pulled hair, feeling happier than you have all day.

Your date is grinning at you, ears perked up and forward, and flops into the seat next to you instead of across. "Goot times!" He swigs his beer. You try your slightly squashed cake, which is delicious, and the bruised feeling in your ribs goes away, which is _weird_.

"It was fun." You throw an arm over his shoulders, surprised by how soft his fur is.

He slides his arm around your waist, snuggling you close, and smiles at close range. "Zo," he purrs, "hyu vanted to hear about mine hat?"

"It's a great hat," you say, although you're not sure you wanted to hear about it precisely. Is there really much to say about hats?

Evidently there is, because this prompts him to hold forth on the construction of his hat, how he got it, and the excellence of hats in general and this hat in particular. It is not quite what you expected of a date and you have to keep fighting off inopportune giggles. 

But you are also in the middle of a soft-furred hug, and he starts rubbing your back at some point, and when you've both finished eating he puts his other paw up to your cheek and you briefly wonder how this is going to work with the teeth before you kiss. 

The teeth don't seem to be a problem, although he tastes inexplicably like pickles, and you lean into each other for several seconds before he pulls back beaming almost literally from ear to ear. "Pretty goot for a first date, yah?"

"Excellent," you say, and then sigh. “But I’ve got things to do. Believe me, I’d stay if I could.”

“Hy totally understand,” the Jäger says seriously. “Hy ken see hyu on hyu way. Vhere hyu going?”

GO TO THE LAB, CONTINUE TRAVELLING, BACKTRACK or RESET?


	8. The Labs

* * *

"The Skeleterodyne brothers’ lab," you tell him.

"Whoo! Dot’s qvite a place."

"Is it?"

"Scary. But verra goot."

He walks you up slopes and stairways until the buildings are carved right into the rock and the streets are tunnels, lit with globes of soft blue flame. You turn left at a sign that says Skeleterodyne Street, walk uphill _again_ past a variety of majestically carved and oddly shaped doors. The Jäger knocks at one of them, and after a moment Bill opens it and lets the two of you into a room that surprises you because it looks like it belongs on the cover of a housekeeping magazine. Mostly. Except for things like the coffee table having an intricate pattern of small bones embedded in black sand under a glass top, and inexplicably trilobite-shaped throw pillows on the couch. 

You part from your date with a last hug and he gives Bill and Barry a salute that nearly gets tangled up in his hat and his ears before leaving.

"Home sweet home," Barry says, and Bill laughs shortly and almost nervously while leading the way without a break deeper into the house -- down a hall, past an open door leading to an eerily red-lit room containing several separate piece of pipe puzzle and an easel with a scribbly diagram on it -- and then presses on an unremarkable piece of wall between two other doors, and it swings out.

You step into... well, it might be a lab? The white walls and bubbling vats suggest a lab. Or it might be a house, since it contains a comfortable bed and several armchairs scattered at apparent random. The house of someone who collects alarm clocks, you notice on closer inspection of what's around the bed.

Then your speculation is cut short when a blonde child a few years younger than you runs forward and flings herself into Bill's arms. "Dad!" she says, happily. "I've been working on the lasers, we might be able to make them in colours other than blue and orange!"

"Wow, seriously? Which--" Barry jogs his elbow and he pauses. "Oh. Yes. I want to hear all about it, but we have a guest."

"Someone new?" She steps back from her... father?... and looks at you. "Hi. I'm Agatha. Are you human?"

"Yes," you say. "But aren't _you_ a human?" you ask, somehow more taken aback by her normality than anything.

"Not entirely," she answers. "I'm half skeleton."

You stare at her. "How exactly? Which part is the skeleton part?"

"The skeleton part," she says with total seriousness, and then gives you a dimpled smile. "You could say I'm a monster in my bones."

You laugh. "I can see the resemblance to Barry, but your jokes might be better." Agatha giggles and Barry snickers -- good, you thought he could probably take a little ribbing. "But, um, how--" Your mother is a believer in comprehensive sex ed but she certainly never discussed how to bone a skeleton. (Okay, apparently the puns are contagious.) "I wouldn't have thought that could happen."

"Her mother was very determined," says Bill. 

He and Agatha both look a little awkward and you figure it's not about the mechanics even before Barry says, "I admit I had an ulterior motive inviting you, besides your interest in science. I thought it'd be good for Agatha to meet a human her own age. And, well, _not_ her mother." 

"Heh. Well, I'm not used to representing the whole human race, but I'll do my best."

"I'm sure being yourself is fine," Agatha says, amused now. "I haven't even met anybody from out of town before."

"Wait, really?" You think about that. "Because of Baron Goatenbach? But you're not human, right?"

She makes a face. "We don't think he'd take finding out about a half-human monster very well, either. Dad says he was more fun before he was king."

"It sounds like it." You pause. "So how is a baron a king, anyway?"

“He’s just that good.”

“His security system involves fish putting children in cages!”

"And while caging and sedating every human who comes through certainly isn't ideal, I have to admit that keeping Banglafish DuPree out of trouble for months at a time is one of his more impressive accomplishments," Bill says dryly. 

Well, the other fish pirate did say she was scary, but this does not exactly answer your question. "Okay, how about the other way around, if he's king why does he want to be called a baron?"

"He was born to that," Barry explains. "He's not actually related to the monster king you would have heard about... well... not more than anybody else, anyway. The Last King had a lot of children and no actual heir. Their magic was diluted and they couldn't make up their minds about precedence so the rest of us just sort of got on with things."

"...Their magic was diluted?"

"Boss monsters -- which the King was -- are a special sort of monster," Bill says. "Agatha, why don't you explain?"

"Right." Agatha stands up straight and clasps her hands in front of her. "Boss monsters don't age unless they have children. Once they have children their soul power goes into those children as they grow and the Boss monster ages. But he had so many children that when he aged the soul power was spread out and none of them have strong enough souls to count as boss monsters anymore."

"...So is Baron Goatenbach a boss monster?"

"Yes," says Bill.

"...And we're pretty sure he secretly has a kid," Barry adds.

Bill gives him a look and he shrugs.

"The alternate hypothesis is that being king is draining him somehow," Bill says after a moment. "In theory it shouldn't work that way, but you never know with Klaus, if he thought it would help. We didn't know live people could stick their souls to each other, either."

"Could that be doing it, if it isn't supposed to work?" you ask.

"Maybe," says Bill. "Absorbing a human soul is meant to change a monster into something terrible, powerful and almost unrecognisable. In this case, it didn't. Klaus is probably just too stubborn to change shape."

You nod, even though you're not at all sure whether he was serious. "What about absorbing monster souls?"

"Monsters can't," says Agatha. "Human souls and monster souls are different enough they can absorb each other, but monsters can't absorb monster souls and humans can't absorb human souls." She grabs your arm, eyes suddenly alight behind her glasses. "Here, I'll show you."  
The room she pulls you into is full of tubes and vats, bubbling with strange coloured liquids like the lab in a sci-fi movie.

"Monster souls are made of love and mercy and compassion," Agatha says, tugging you over to a flask of something shimmering ivory. "While human souls are made of other things! Like bravery, patience, kindness, integrity, perseverance, justice and, most of all, _determination_."

This flask is bubbling with a liquid as red as rubies.

"So, what does that do?"

"It gives humans the ability to reset time, kind of. If you feel particularly determined about something you can make a save point. Actually! Would you mind doing it?" She grabs you again and tugs you into a room where the walls seem to be made of telescopes all pointing at you.

"Doing what?" you ask, feeling rather observed.

"Okay. I can't do this, but… well, you should be able to. First think of something that makes you really determined!"

She's so excited, you don't want to disappoint her, and that thought **fills you with determination**.

"You did it!" she crows. "At least I think you did! Now we have to test it. Now you go back to it and tell me 'It worked!' before I can say anything."

"You thought of that before you told me to make it, right?"

She grins at you. "Of course."

You close your eyes, wondering how to do this, but somehow... somehow it's as easy as pushing a button.

You **reset**.

You're looking at Agatha opening her mouth, and you quickly say, "It worked!" Then, "I think?"

She hops up and down in place this time. "That's what I was about to tell you to say!"

You laugh. "Wow."

"Here, let's look at the data." She swings some telescopes aside to reveal a screen. "Huh. That's odd."

"Odd how?" you ask, crowding closer to look at a lot of numbers you don't understand.

"It's like there's an echo... but maybe that's normal for humans? I've never tested on a real one before. It doesn't fit the hypothesis, but..." she trails off, absorbed in the numbers.

"Who have you tested on?" you ask. "Who else can do this?" You feel kind of unnerved at the idea someone might be able to just take you back and you wouldn't even know you'd lost a little bit of your life, that you were stuck replaying. Then you feel grateful that Agatha isn't unnerved by you.

"The Jägers," she answers, almost absently. "It's really tricky, though. They can reset, but they have to all be determined about the exact same thing at the exact same time."

"The _Jägers?_ Why?" you ask. They hadn't seemed stranger than any other monsters, you think, and then wonder how you'd quantify that.

"Oh, we injected them with extra." She looks up and adds quickly, "It's okay! They volunteered."

"Well, it doesn't seem to have hurt them." You review your memories from the bar some more. "Uh. The amalgamates?" How exactly did they 'heppen'?

Agatha makes a face. "Calibration problems. Too much determination can make a monster kind of... melty, and some of them merged. I have a higher natural level and tolerance."

The amalgamates didn't seem bothered by it. More worryingly, neither does Agatha. You're wondering if you may have been a bit naive to step into her experiments just because the mad scientist asking was adorable. "You're not going to try injecting me with anything, are you?"

"I _told_ you they were volunteers," she says indignantly. "Anyway, I can only really serve as a donor for determination and you've obviously got plenty of that already."

"Okay, sorry." You hold your hands up. "So, the determination comes from you? Is that why you're okay with being stuck here?"

"I'd rather not be," she says with a sigh, "but I don't really want Dad and Uncle Barry to have to fight an old friend to keep me from being sedated, either."

"I guess you're still young," you say, as if she wasn't almost as old as you. "But you can't stay here for the rest of your life, right?"

Agatha frowns. "I... don't know. It's a really good lab...." But she's looking at the door.

"And you're strong, aren't you? Compared to monsters, I mean. You might not need anyone to fight for you."

"Baron Goatenbach probably still has my mother's soul," she points out. 

You deflate. "That sucks. And is also creepy."

"...My soul's half-human, though," she says slowly. "And I don't think he really wants to hurt them, either."

"Do you know how to fight?" Do _you_ know how to fight? You think you do. Something about... martial arts classes?

"...Not really. I've considered the theory, but that's it."

"Theory won't get you very far in a fight," you say, laughing. "Well, probably? I don't know how it works if you use magic. But you should try fighting me, see what you've got."

She gives you a quizzical look. "Dad and Uncle Barry said you didn't actually fight anybody on your way in. And that humans can get hurt even if you didn't mean to. Are you sure?"

"I have a piece of cake," you tell her. "I got into the Jägers' brawl so friendly ones for practice are probably okay."

She nods. "I'll try to keep attacks small. And I won't use deathrays."

"...yeah. Don't use deathrays. Thanks."

The two of you square up. You're almost expecting text to flash in front of your eyes, but it never does.

Her first attack is a small wave of bones which you jump over easily. "So, there is something skeletony about you."

You go to feint in return and the weird thought pops into your mind that you could kill her now. It's not a serious thought, more like the urge to throw yourself off a cliff just because you know you shouldn't. But... you can turn back time. She wouldn't even really be dead. Right? You're not going to do it, you're not even really considering it.

Right?

PLAYFIGHT or KILL?


	9. The Labs

* * *

**PLAYFIGHT**

That is the worst idea ever, seriously, of course you're not going to kill Agatha!

What you do is tap her lightly on the nose and then stop with a slightly pained expression. "I kind of thought you'd at least try to dodge?"

"Sorry," she says, looking sort of embarrassed.

When you swing your fist lightly at her nose again she sidesteps awkwardly and surprises you by singing a trill of melody. It surprises you more when that trill floats towards you, a lovely little staircase of quavers you duck under easily. The next notes are more staccato and they fly faster, making you dodge for real.

Agatha looks encouraged, and she raises her hand and brings up another little stripe of multicolored bones, along with a scale in all different colors. They line up with each other, which limits your space but simplifies dodging them. 

"Can you mix that one up more too?" you ask, interested, and she does. 

You try holding still for a blue one, which gets you in trouble with a nearby orange, and then you don't quite duck under a pink one, which hits you like a pang of guilt for thinking about hurting her earlier but then fizzles out. "What was _that_?" 

"Retribution," says Agatha, stopping her attacks. "It shouldn't do any damage unless you've done something wrong, so I figured it was okay to try."

"Cool!" You fling yourself forward, roll and come up on your feet right in front of her. Once again your fist connects lightly with her nose. "Boop. Seriously, start dodging! Your magic's great, but it won't do any good if I knock you out!"

"I keep forgetting to move," she sighs. "LAAA." This comes out as a rapidly expanding whole note that you fling yourself backward to avoid.

You manage to mostly dodge a few dangerous arpeggios, and stay still while a blue semibreve goes through you. When you take an opening -- diving through a purple note and two orange ones and ignoring the pang of guilt -- and swing at her, _this_ time she dodges.

You both laugh, Agatha tries punching you to very little effect, and then she forces you away with bones at your feet. The door to the lab opens, knocking over one arm of a bone pinwheel spinning across the floor, and Bill looks from the two of you to Agatha's multicolored now-fading magic with a dubious air. "What brought this on?"

"She thinks I need to practice dodging," Agatha explains. "In case I ever go out."

This gets a more pointed look, and you realize you are panting and disheveled and Agatha has barely moved except the once. "... _Who's_ practicing dodging?"

"I am not sure that's the part to focus on, Bill," Barry says from behind him.

"She dodged last time," you put in.

"That's good, but not going to help much against Klaus's people," says Barry.

Agatha sighs. "I suppose not." She turns to you. "Are you going to be okay out there?"

"Probably," you say. "I've done okay so far and you've just proved I can do stuff over if I need to."

"Oh yes! But still, I want to know how you do... hold on!" She darts away into another lab and you hear the sounds of clattering metal.

You must look concerned. "She's probably working on a present for you," Barry says helpfully, which is not as reassuring as he may have intended.

She runs back in and hands you a small rectangular thing, covered with fancy brasswork and cogs. It takes you a minute to recognise it as a mobile phone. "A phone?" you ask.

"So you can call me," she's bouncing on her toes a little. "One of the Jägers found it in the dump, but I've improved it a lot. It has my number programmed in."

"Wow, that's --"

"It's also a storage device, key chain, death ray, bomb defuser, and jetpack!"

" _What?_ "

You are, frankly, not sure you're willing to try out any of those things (with the _possible_ exception of the key chain) and are now pretty wary about using the phone at all. Agatha is still grinning proudly though, and you don't really have the heart to say that.

"Maybe," Bill says, sounding like he's trying _really hard_ not to laugh, "we can help figure out the functionality." 

You assume the death ray function isn't going to go off at random... but you're kind of afraid to stick it in your pocket because you keep imagining the worst butt dial ever. You can't quite blame Bill for wanting to laugh at you. "I could probably use some tips," you say. "I didn't know phones could do most of that."

"Let me see it...." Barry takes it, which is kind of a relief, and pokes at the screen while you look over his shoulder. "Okay, contact menu, call, text, net, defuser, jetpack -- if you want to try the jetpack, you should probably go outside."

"I wouldn't think I should try the bomb defuser indoors either!"

Barry looks puzzled. "Well, we'd have to build a bomb first."

"...I just want to be sure I won't set off something like the jetpack or death ray by mistake."

"You shouldn't, you need to swipe patterns in and the jetpack and death ray are pretty complicated patterns. Here, I'll show you."

As you lean over to look, Agatha startles you by pulling the flute out of your pocket. It must have been sticking out, after that running around.

"Can I borrow this?" she asks. "I want to put it under the spectregraph."

"The what?"

"It tests for soul traces! I'll be able to tell you if it can boost any of your abilities."

"Like... to play the flute?"

"Like... if it was played with patience, or diligence, you know..." She waves a hand.

"Sure, why not?" You dig out the puzzle box. "You want to try this too?"

"Ooh. I can solve it and put it under the spectregraph."

"Good luck, I haven't made much progress."

She returns somewhat after you've finished learning to use the phone and also not to be afraid of it, but she does return with the puzzlebox open. There's a deck of cards in her hands.

"This was inside it," she says, handing the cards to you. "There's patience on them, mostly."

"I guess that makes sense." In a slightly spooky way. Well, you are in a house that belongs to skeletons. "Is there anything on the other stuff?"

"Perseverance on the box and integrity on the flute," she says.

Now you almost wish you did play. "I like that." On impulse, you hold the flute out to Agatha. "Do you want it? I think you're a lot more musical than I am." And with all this hiding, it probably wouldn't hurt to have something that might help her stay true to herself.

She takes it carefully, with an almost flustered smile. "Thank you."

"You've done a lot for me." Including the very disconcerting phone. "And... thanks, all three of you, but I think I should really get going." 

"It's really _not_ a good idea," Barry says, looking pained. "You could stay here, if you want."

"That's a kind offer but... I think I'd rather get somewhere even if it goes wrong."

"Can't blame you," Bill says, "but be careful, okay?"

Agatha hugs you.

You leave the lab, and the slightly too perfect house.

BACKTRACK, CONTINUE, or RESET?


	10. Lightning Road

* * *

**CONTINUE**

Coming out of Game Mechanicsburg gives you a stunning view of the next area. and _stunning_ is definitely the word. In front of you the ceiling rises even higher, forming a dome full of clouds like bruises. Below is a plain of cracked stone, metal spires topped with fleur-de-lis rising out of it at intervals.

Lightning strikes.

The first time it makes you jump and shield your eyes, but the second and third time follow so closely that you're soon squinting them open again against the actinic glow. The spires are constantly being struck,stray sparks sometimes leaping between them.

It's beautiful, but it's also terrifying, and you're going to have to be careful down there. At least the spires will make sure you're not the tallest thing out there.

You edge down the walkway at first and then get impatient and run, hesitating to face your fate isn't going to make it any different when you get there.

Reaching the bottom and looking out at the plain ahead you are **filled with determination**.

You run past the first spire, and a net flies out from behind it and tangles you up. You crash to the ground, roll over, and see Banglafish DuPree stalking toward you. 

"You've been a lot of trouble," she says. "I _thought_ the Skeleterodynes might have let you through town. Soft-skulled, both of them!"

Nonononono. You are not getting carried off in a net and put in an _enchanted sleep_. You struggle a bit, then think of the phone. Could you cut your way free with the death ray function? That seems a little drastic. Or....

Maybe you don't have to get caught at all. Now that you know what that sense of determination means, you could just... start over, this time knowing where DuPree is. 

You see her lips spread into a grin over teeth that don't look any less alarming for having met the Jägers, probably because DuPree looks like she really would like to bite you, and you **reset.**

You start running again, slower, and this time you spot the net out of the corner of your eye and kick up to a faster pace to get past it.

"Hey! Quit running away!" she yells. She's running after you, net held over her head, and an array of magic knives appears. Lightning from a nearby strike catches on them and for a moment there's a web of electricity heading at you as sparks flare between the knives. You throw yourself to the side, sheltering behind a spire, before realising how bad an idea that is and pulling away from it. Keep running.

This has to be an improvement. You outran her once before; you can do it again. Right? 

That's questionable, actually. DuPree is fast, and when you glance over your shoulder again you see little jets of sparks flying off her shoes. You might have only made it last time because she didn't have all her equipment with her.

Uh. Jetpack setting? It seems a bit extreme, but you want to get out of here. You push in the code with trembling fingers and your phone... transforms into a jetpack. What else were you expecting? Somehow it still takes you by surprise.

Okay then. You start to shrug it on, still running, and as soon as it's more or less over one shoulder it grabs onto you and straps itself into place. You find the controls in your hand and squeeze. 

DuPree screams in frustration as you streak off into the air. You scream as you nearly hit a spire.

Lightning strikes, far too close, and you realise with a start that using a jet pack in a place full of lightning may not be the smartest idea you've ever had. Staying low means nearly crashing into spires a lot while you dodge knives, but it's better than getting hit by lightning. You think. If you could just lose DuPree you could turn this thing off, but she's still hot on your tail.

You glimpse another network of electrified knives coming at you, try to duck aside, and clip a spire. Pain blossoms down your shoulder; you flip the wrong way and the ground hits you hard. You hear something crack and aren't sure if it's bone or the jetpack or both. 

The net comes down over you again and you gather up your determination and **reset**.

...You've got to come up with a better way to get past her this time, and you eye the spires, trying to pick out a reasonably straight path. What if you don't run right past her? What if you try steering the jetpack when you're _not_ also trying to dodge knives?

It works, sort of. With the backpack on you get past her quickly, you manage to remember where the spires are from last time well enough to dodge them and by the time you're dodging new ones you've got the hang of it a bit. You're disoriented, though, swerving so much, and it's only when a dead end looms up ahead of you that you realise you've been pushed off the path forwards and into a canyon in the edge of the cave.

"Finally," says DuPree, as you shut down your jetpack before you fly into the wall. She throws the net over you again and you consider resetting, but... you're not really sure you can do better.

If you try enough times, maybe you can learn the pattern of the spires well enough to get through. If you reset enough times, maybe you can get away. But you're getting tired mentally even if your body goes back to how it was every time, and apparently DuPree can keep up with the jetpack and even herd you. And you're starting to rethink how comparatively drastic it is to activate the death ray versus rewinding time over and over again. 

There's a switch on the jetpack controls labeled _phone_ , and you toggle it and have a phone in your hand and a little bit of wiggle room. You select the death ray, swipe the pattern (it's a bullseye) and choose the lowest setting. You burn through several cords in the net and scramble to your feet, gathering it up in your free hand so you don't trip, just in time to wind up face to face with DuPree. 

You could shoot her. You're seriously not sure how you can get out of this otherwise. But even if they _did_ hand you the death ray, you get the feeling all three Skeleterodynes would be really disappointed....

**SHOOT, SPARE, or RESET?**


	11. Marten's Gap

* * *

SPARE

You'd rather not hurt anybody, even DuPree, but you're not willing to be captured. You trace your thumb over the controls again, nervously. "Back _off_! I have a death ray!" 

She scoffs, but you can see her keeping an eye on it. "Do you even know how to use that thing?" Knives swoop over her head, points toward you, and then swoop back and forth smoothly like a school of minnows, showing off her control. 

You grind your teeth. "I can point and shoot and it's not on the lowest setting anymore," you growl, "and I'm _not_ going back in that cage." 

She gives you a quizzical look. "You do realize you're travelling the same way I'd be taking you, right?" 

"Yes," you say, exasperated. "So why are you so set on locking me up to do it?"

"It's my job." She flings the knives at you in a pattern that suggests she's not that worried about failing to do it by killing you, though.

You fire at the knives and a lot of them vanish, as you fling yourself away from the rest. They don't swerve again to come after you so she must 'let go' in some sense. "Kidnapping children to put them in magic comas like some weird fairy tale villain. Great job."

"You say that like it's not the coolest part," she retorts, flipping another bunch of knives at you. And a fork.

You drop flat, jump up, wonder if you should shoot her and whether it would even hurt if you still have mixed feelings. "How'd you get to that from piracy anyway?"

"He was pretty insistent." She shrugs. "He's kind of boring, but he's okay. Even if he's all _merciful_ and stupid. I mean, he left _me_ alive."

Your eyes narrow. "And that was stupid of him?" You don't want to be mad at her for possibly planning to betray him -- he's the one who wants you in a coma!

"He spends _all his time_ telling me not to burn stuff down! You'd think he'd spare himself the energy if he's gonna be boring." She grins, a flash of shark-teeth. "Pfft. Are you worried about him?"

"...I'm not exactly happy with him either but it sounds like he's trying to do a good job," you mutter.

"You dope." This rain of knives doesn't really come near you, though. "You're not meant to sympathise with your enemies. Kids these days."

"Bill Skeleterodyne told me about Lucrezia -- I can see why Baron Goatenbach is worried, that doesn't mean I want to be a prisoner."

"We're all prisoners down here, kid."

"I know. ...Well, except him, I guess."

"Yeah. I'd be down for waging war on humanity, but he wants to stay here because humans are too strong blah blah." She throws her arms up and, to your surprise it doesn't cause a shower of knives.

"I don't think starting the war up again would be good for anybody," you say. "But... you know, I realize Lucrezia did some damage down here but I'm starting to really wonder what _happened_ to him out there."

"...This fight is getting boring. If you want to gossip about my boss then we're getting cake. I'll fight you properly afterwards."

You blink. "Cake?" 

"You _do_ have cake in the human world, right?" DuPree asks, like she's rethinking whether humans are actually worth fighting if they haven't figured out cake. 

"Yes! I just... wasn't expecting it to come up right now. Sure. Let's get cake." You tell yourself you can reset if she's lying, and lower the death ray phone.

The town she leads you to is, as far as you can judge, a pretty normal town. It has a lot of lightning rods attached to its various buildings, but it isn't on the ceiling. "This is Marten's Gap, she says. "It's run by a bunch of wet rodents, but the cake is pretty good."

"...Literal rodents?" you ask, because it seems about even odds whether they'll turn out to be actual martens or metaphorically ratty water elementals.

"Casnoxels," she says. "Part cat, part snake, part fox and part weasel. They're the sneakiest monsters and dealing with them gives me a headache."

You pause. "I cannot picture that at all."

"Yeah, sometimes they're invisible." She pulls you into a shop as you pass and there is, indeed, cake. "The only good thing is they give Klaus an even bigger headache. If he ever really lets me loose it's probably gonna be on them."

"Huh? Why?"

She points to a cake and the bunny behind the counter nervously hands over two slices. You realise she's not going to pay for it. "They've got some political reason why they think they should be in charge or something, so they're a pain about it. And one of them really got on his bad side for other reasons."

That's what you get for going out to eat with pirates, you guess. You sigh and pay the bunny, who looks gobsmacked. "By being sneaky?"

"By sneaking around with the wrong person."

"Somebody who annoys him _more_?"

She laughs, fins fluttering with it, and grabs you to tug you over to a table. "I guess the kid probably _does_ at that. Yeah."

"He has a kid?" Is it not really a secret?

"I didn't say it was _his_ kid!"

You don't see where to get utensils, so you pick up the cake with your fingers, half a plan (or a half-baked plan) starting to form. "Oh, sorry. Figured that'd explain driving him up the wall more than political weasels."

"Pfft. Nah. There's just a kid around the place, kind of like a little brother to me. You remind me of him, a bit. Bet you'd be good in a fight if you tried hitting people, but noooooo. It's all dodging."

"I think it'd make the Skeleterodynes sad if I actually shot you." 

She scoffs. "Naaaaah. Bill tried shooting me before!"

"He did?"

"Sure! Granted, not a kill shot. Obviously." She rolls her eyes. "And then he lectured me about how monsters had enough problems without preying on each other. This reminds me why I like Klaus. Very straightforward. Do what I say if you want to live, ya know?"

"I'm getting the picture." It's definitely not your thing, do what I say if you want to live. You consider yourself a straightforward person, but you like having choices. You take a bite of cake and deliberately eat it sloppily enough that it gets over your face and hands. "Hey, do monsters have bathrooms?"

"We've got places to take baths," she says, eyeing you suspiciously. "If the food's going through you like I hear human stuff does, though, nobody's going to be set up for your weird anatomical problems."

"I think I just need to wash my hands. You have places for that?"

She waves a bite of cake. "Sure, go ask the shopkeeper where she does it."

You get up and walk to the counter. You're not sure whether Banglafish can hear you so you say, "Is there anywhere I could wash up?'

The rabbit looks at you and nods. "Come through to the kitchen, there's a sink there." She leads you right through the kitchen and to the back door, though, with a questioning look that asks if she's read the situation right.

You nod earnestly, reach for the door, then see her look back over her shoulder with her ears twitching, and you remember how scared she looked earlier. You look at your cake-smeared hands, go back to the kitchen, and turn the water on loudly to wash them. 

The rabbit nods and heads back out to the counter.

You wipe off the rest of the cake as fast as you can, leave the water running, and bolt.

You hear Banglafish's footsteps sooner than you'd hoped, but you're in a town now. You jump up to pull yourself onto a balcony and then curl low on it and freeze as she passes. By the time she doubles back you're across a roof and down a tree, lying flat on somebody's front lawn. By the time she reaches you there you're sitting on a lamp post and she doesn't quite look up in time to catch you before you've jumped and darted down an alley.

You think you've finally lost her and you take a deep breath, pressing back against the alley wall to hide your silhouette anyway. She knows you're heading her way, maybe she doesn't think it's worth turning the town upside down to catch you. Maybe Baron Goatenbach would be upset if she did.

A knife spins out of nowhere and hits the wall by your ear and you bite back a scream, eye-teeth digging into your lower lip. She found you, after all.

But when you turn you see a sleek, red-black creature with perky ears and a snakeskin belly looking at you with distrustful eyes.

**A casnoxel. The sneakiest of monsters.**

The words flash before your eyes and you think, _yeah, DuPree said_ with a momentary surge of hatred for the text, the casnoxel and everything else being so _inconvenient_ right now.

You are **filled with ~~irritation~~ determination.**

"What are you doing here?" the casnoxel says. "Did Baron Goatenbach send you?"

Really? That's what she thinks? You want to hit her from sheer frustration, even though most of your frustration isn't aimed at her.

KILL, SPARE or FLEE?


	12. Casnoxel Castle

SPARE

You are not going to start hitting people just for asking questions after you managed a temporarily civil conversation with Banglafish DuPree. (You refuse to rule out hitting Banglafish, however.) Even monsters helpfully labelled as sneaky. And you’ve _been_ fleeing.

"No." With the very edge of your vision, you watch the knife flicker out of existence. "He didn't. That's why he's got his ex-pirate chasing me."

"And taking you out for cake?" the casnoxel demands.

_Okay, you got me, he sent us out for cake._ You bite it back because that would probably make more sense than what actually happened. "I am actually kind of confused by that part myself. Although I would like to point out that I bought the cake."

The casnoxel considers. "Banglafish being confusing is pretty normal, but it's still suspicious you were with her."

You sigh. "Well, I'm trying not to be, so would you mind not drawing her attention?"

The casnoxel pulls herself further into the alley, getting closer to you in the meantime, and seems to fade. All her colours are closer to those of the bricks behind her. Then she's holding the puzzle cube in her hands. "Okay, he wouldn't send an assassin with human stuff and no real weapons," she says, still at a sort of half visibility. She hands the cube back to you. "I'm Violetta Minkdarev, by the way. My cousin's going to want to see you."

....You do not like being pickpocketed. That was disturbing. At least she gave it back. "Your cousin?"

"And liege," she says, although she rolls her eyes when she says it. "I had to check you weren't going to kill him first, but he wants to talk to you."

"Okay, sure." Why not? You want to go home, but you're not in a tearing hurry and maybe this will put Banglafish off your trail. Or give her another chance to ambush you, but she could do that anyway. "So, uh... does Baron Goatenbach usually send people to kill him, and does he usually want to chat with them if he does?"

"No, mostly his relatives send people to kill him, but Banglafish tries fairly regularly," she says. "Mostly he wants to know who you are. _Especially_ now I know you were carrying something human made, he collects that stuff."

You clench your hand around the little puzzle box. You don't want to lose it. That might be a reason not to go, even if it seems like a trivial thing to distract you from the horror of _mostly his relatives send people to kill him_. Come to think of it, an ongoing problem with assassins also sounds like a reason not to visit, even if it barely feels real somehow. Still, you already agreed. "I _am_ human."

...Maybe you shouldn't have said that. What if he wants to collect you?

"...in that case you should definitely talk to him." She takes your hand in something that is mostly a fuzzy paw. " _Before_ you get sedated by Baron Goatenbach."

"I'm trying to avoid that, you know," you tell her. "But okay, let's go."

Keeping up is tough. You have longer legs, but she can climb like a weasel and slither like a snake, and she's unfairly impatient that you can't. You're pretty sure her frustration is her own fault, though, since she seems to be leading you in some kind of spiral. Still, eventually you're approaching a palace. "Casnoxel Castle," she says, gesturing at it. She's pulled you out onto the path in front of it, so presumably you're not sneaking anymore.

You gaze up at the gates, decorated with a picture of a sword jammed through a gear. "It's very impressive," you say. "Is the logo supposed to be about breaking things?"

"Eh. Knowing them it's probably about looking fancy without thinking it through."

You snort. Apparently she isn't that impressed. 

The gates swing open, splitting the design down the middle of the sword, and another casnoxel poses between them with a hand on either side. He looks surprisingly young, insofar as you can judge, maybe about your age. His well-groomed fur is an auburn red, his snakeskin belly patterned in gold and brown, and he’s wearing a red waistcoat. There are pince-nez perched on his muzzle. "Violetta," he says, "whyever are you keeping our guest waiting?"

**Tarvek Erminvoraus. Sneaky, smug, devious, do not trust.** Uh. Well. You'd sort of got used to the text commenting on everything, but now you're suspecting it of bias. Unless it's right? You think you'd rather make up your own mind than trust the judgement of floating text.

Violetta sighs and rolls her eyes. "I had to be sure of losing Goatenbach's lackey first. And that she wasn't another one. They had _cake_."

"She got bored," you sigh. "A very nice bunny cashier let me sneak out the back. Hey, can you guys make sure she's all right? I _think_ Banglafish was busy coming after me, but..."

"Of course," says Tarvek. "Violetta can go and check while we talk."

Violetta gives him a look. "Send someone else. I'm sticking with you and your guest."

"Really, Violetta, there's no need to be openly suspicious of everyone."

"Okay, okay," you say. "I don't care who goes, but I'd rather not stand out here while you bicker."

"We don't _bicker_ ," Tarvek says, which is certainly not true but also not a very sneaky lie. "But do come in." 

You follow him. Violetta follows you, but you do spot her stopping to talk to someone you can't see -- well, it seems more likely than that she's talking to a lamp on the wall -- and you hope that means someone is checking on the bunny. 

"So what did you want to talk to me about?"

"You intend to go home, don't you?" Tarvek says, dropping back to tuck your arm in his. "Have people been trying to explain why you can't?"

You eye him warily. "Yes. I'm still planning on it."

"I can help."

"That would make a really nice change from people trying to stop me either for their sake or, apparently, mine," you say. He may have his own angle on this, but you are _tired_ of trying to handle this alone or with the most ambivalent help in existence. "How?"

"You won't like it," he says, which is not really how you expected him to follow that up. 

"...Tell me anyway?"

"Breaking the barrier requires the power of thirteen human souls."

"I need my soul," you tell him. You really don't want to have to fight him. “I really think the other humans do, too."

"I thought you'd say that," he says. "But you don't have to give it up. Just... lend it for a little bit. Put it to a purpose."

"It's serving a purpose where it is," you snap, because that makes it sound like... like he's asking you to lend him an unused wheelbarrow or something. "But go on."

"I promise,” Tarvek says, “I have no desire to refight a lost war over killing humans for their souls. So I've developed a vessel to combine and direct thirteen souls in a united purpose, and then restore them to themselves. My sources suggest that Baron Goatenbach has ten available already -- and _one_ makes him impossible to challenge--!" He looks irritated, then smoothes it away. "You'd make eleven. Research suggests that if all the monsters of the underground unite, we might equal a twelfth. And I should imagine all his prisoners are equally eager to be free."

That's... entirely possible, or at least reasonably likely if they were, you know, conscious. You're not so sure about Lucrezia's cooperation and wonder how much Tarvek knows about that. "Aren't you still one short?"

"Yes," he admits. "But if you can get past the barrier you could fetch one and bring it back. You wouldn't have to kill anyone, human souls linger after death."

"...I don't exactly run into a lot of recently dead people either, I don't know how to find or 'fetch' a soul, and that still sounds really worrying."

"Hospitals and graveyards both work. The soul wouldn't be hurt and we'd let it go afterwards." He gives you an earnest look, or as earnest as someone with his particular mix of animal features can manage. "If you agree I could give you something that would let you catch one."

You only have his word that's even possible let alone harmless, you still don't know how _you're_ getting through the barrier (which this in fact doesn't help with at all), and... going soul-hunting sounds even creepier than Lucrezia detaching her own soul and sticking it to Baron Goatenbach. 

...Is that what he's really got in mind for 'you' going through the barrier?

"I appreciate that you're talking about freeing all the prisoners," you say carefully, "but I'm not seeing how this helps me get out. Instead that seems to be step one."

"You need a monster soul to get past the barrier and only boss monsters have souls that last long enough," he says. "I can send someone to help you with Baron Goatenbach."

"To help how--" It hits you what that logically means and you stop walking without letting go of his arm. He swivels to face you as if he planned it. "I thought you said this didn't involve killing anybody!"

"I said you wouldn't have to kill a human!"

"I'm not exactly keen on anyone being killed!"

"If you want to get out of here it's going to have to be his soul you take. The only question is whether you kill him yourself or let me help," he says. "What he's doing... holding us all prisoner down here. He has no right. The throne should belong to my family, to me, and I'd do what my ancestor would have done -- lead us out into the light and broker peace with the humans. All Baron Goatenbach is doing is forcing humans into sleep and us into imprisonment out of his own arrogance and fear." His ears perk up and his eyes shine with a confidence you don't fully understand. "We can't go on like this. But we need your help."

It was easier to contradict the people who said it couldn't be done, insist you'd find a way, even if everyone knows more than you do about how it works. It's harder to argue with Tarvek laying out a solution however terrible and say you'll find _another_ way. 

...They can't have thought you'd do _this_ when they let you leave.

AGREE TO TARVEK'S PLAN or REJECT IT?


	13. Casnoxel Castle

* * *

Chapter 13

REJECT

"I appreciate the offer," you say, although you're not sure you do, really, "but I don't want to kill anyone." If you really do wind up having to kill Baron Goatenbach... well, you'd rather have been forced to that point yourself than have led an assassin to him. That seems like something you don't get to change your mind on. "I'll go alone."

Tarvek looks pained. "You'll wind up another Sleeping Beauty. Like in the Dwarf and the Seven Snow Whites."

You are not sure if the monsters have a very different version of that story or he just got the one you know backwards.

"Maybe I won't," you say, with more bravado than you feel. "I've lasted this long. And you're trying to involve me in some... some kind of political coup. I don't understand monster politics _at all_. I don't know how someone can be both a baron and a king, and I don't know where you come in."

"It's not really a coup," he says. " _I'm_ descended from the monsters' last true king. Baron Goatenbach just... took over." He stops and flings a door wide. "And _I_ have a plan!"

The drama suggests that the room beyond the door should be grand or intimidating. It actually reminds you of nothing so much as Agatha's hidden room, as it looks like a cross between a sitting room and an electronics laboratory, with a large canopied bed occupying the back corner as if it had been crowded aside. 

There is a woman sitting in one of the chairs, but she doesn't react to your arrival. 

...Correction. There is a life-size metal doll sitting in one of the chairs?

"That's the vessel," Tarvek says, ushering you to sit in a different chair. "I made it myself."

"To... put souls in temporarily?" 

...You feel like it's looking at you.

"Yes. It's capable of containing the souls of humans -- or of monsters, although monster souls aren't strong enough to do much good -- without doing any damage, and of releasing them afterwards." He drops to all fours and vanishes under the bed, returning moments later with a box. "I wouldn't want to do any harm to the humans who have passed through here. Many of them seem to have been quite remarkable, by the traces left on these."

You look into the box. There are two necklaces, one with a yin symbol and one with a yang symbol that look like they would fit together. There's a thick book labelled _History and Legends of Monsters_ that you'd think came from down here if it hadn't been published by Penguin. There's a mandala toy, a wire ball that can be twisted into different shapes, along with a pair of worn ballet shoes and a brass compass.

You can't feel whatever traces he does, but you remember Agatha testing the human items you'd found before. You hesitate a moment and then take the puzzle box back out of your pocket. Violetta already saw it, after all. "What can you tell me about them?"

"Someone persevering,” he says, taking it carefully in his paws. It's been solved once, but you'd put the cards back inside it, and now he has them out again with a few deft twists. “And patient, from the cards. I think... probably one of the sleeping humans. Things from the dump feel more... unwanted." He offers them back to you. "Thank you for showing me."

"I found them in the ruins not long after I fell in. I guess whoever had them didn't get to persevere very _far_ , at least here."

His ears fold down and he rubs a hand over the box looking genuinely regretful. "You could free them, you know, instead of sharing their fate."

"I--" You swallow. "I have to find another way. If I'd murder somebody to get out of here I couldn't really complain if any of you did, could I? Even if I wasn't born yet when you were imprisoned." You can't say you wouldn't kill somebody for your freedom, you've thought about it multiple times with Banglafish alone, but it's one thing to fight somebody who's trying to put you in a cage and another to kill somebody to use their soul as a tool. 

You realize this sounds uncomfortably like an invitation for Tarvek to turn his assassins on _you_ instead and use your soul to walk out, about the time he grabs your wrist, but all he does is pull your hand up and smack the puzzle cube into your palm hard enough to sting. "He is the one imprisoning us. None of the humans who made the barrier are alive anymore, and he could let us out _any time he wants_!"

By hanging around graveyards? "Does he know about the vessel?"

Tarvek blinks. "What? Of course not!"

"So he'd have to, uh, absorb them himself. However that works." Which is creepy as hell.

"The theory doesn't suggest it's very difficult." Tarvek frowns. "Although... I suppose he might _not_ know how to put them back."

"I'd think not? I mean, it sounds like he's still carrying a soul that was forced on him and _I_ wouldn't want to carry _her_ around."

"I hadn't considered... not that he'd accept _my_ help, of course, even if...." Tarvek stops muttering to himself and the faraway, slightly stunned look in his eyes is replaced by focused interest. "You seem to know a surprising amount."

"I met some informative skeletons," you say drily.

"Hmm. I suppose they would know a lot about it."

You find yourself looking at the doll again. You _really_ can't shake the feeling it's looking back.

"Look," you say. "I won't tell Baron Goatenbach about your vessel and I don't want to kill him. But maybe I could try to talk to him? If the problem is that he doesn't know what's possible..."

"The problem is that he doesn't _want_ to leave the Underground," Tarvek says. "Some of the problem, at least. But I appreciate the sentiment. If talking to him does any good at all..." He hands you a card. It has **Tarvek Erminvoraus** embossed on it in a font so fancy it's barely legible. Beneath it is a phone number. You manage not to laugh.

"I'll give you a call," you say. "If it seems like it'll help. Thanks."

"By all means." He sighs. "I feel I should ask you to stay, but my family would be inquisitive and I doubt you want to lose the remaining hours for travel. So perhaps I should ask if you need help getting past Captain DuPree."

"That would be really appreciated," you admit. You're also pretty keen on avoiding his family, since they may regularly attempt to kill him. Tarvek doesn't seem so bad -- political coups aside -- and he's a lot cuter when he's explicitly letting you leave, but you might like to avoid the rest of the casnoxels living here.

"Very well then," and without raising his voice, "Violetta?"

You didn't think she was in the room, but hey, there she is. If there's one monster ability you'd really like to have it's this invisibility thing. "Got it," Violetta says, holding a hand out to you. "You heading to the FONT next?"

"What's the FONT?" you ask.

"A geothermal generator that provides power to the underground," Tarvek cuts in smoothly, "maintained by the Skeleterodynes. It may take some care to navigate your way through it, but it's the fastest way to the palace and likely the only one that won't get you caught."

So, if you go forward you'll be going through this FONT, you guess. Of course, you can always go back.

CONTINUE, BACKTRACK, RESET or LOAD


End file.
